STONE BELLY
Created, choreographed, written, and co-composed by Marie Lloyd Paspe
Performed by Ching-I Chang, treya lam, Paulina Meneses, Marie Lloyd Paspe, and Sugar Vendil

Installation by Ching-I Chang and Marie Lloyd Paspe
Music composed and performed live by treya lam and Sugar Vendil
Contributing choreography by Ching-I Chang and Paulina Meneses
Lighting designed by Serena Wong

STONE BELLY is a dance-theater performance centering the resilient mythology of babaylans and teachings of indigenous land-based healers from the Philippines. Babaylans are pre-colonial women and trans matriarchal shamanic healers whose traditions still persist today, called by different names. Based on Visayan legend, Spanish colonizers cut our babaylans’ bodies and fed them to the crocodiles. In their bellies, the babaylan spirit survived.

STONE BELLY re-imagines this myth, telling the story of BABAE — fragments of neither mother, grandmother, nor daughter – stuck inside the crocodile belly. They cross-contaminate timelines through debris of fascia, memories, and typhoons, engulfing the gaps that separate BABAE from their fragments. The work incorporates explosive choreography, expansive original live music, poetic narrative, and intergenerational community gatherings within an installation of handwoven netting and discarded packaging paper.